All posts tagged ‘myth’

Finding a dungeon crawl adventure board game these days is not much of a challenge. The real difficulty is to find a cooperative dungeon crawl board game that doesn’t require one of the players to play against their friends as the dungeon master, crypt keeper, or overlord. I’m very excited to see that MERCS Miniatures is Kickstarting a new fully-cooperative dungeon crawl adventure game called Myth. In this game The Darkness (the generic name for the forces of evil) will be controlled by a unique set of rules governed by a Boss Deck (as featured in their Kickstarter game play video). It’s described on the Kickstarter page,

Players aren’t being driven by properties out of their control, nor are they being shepherded by a person whose skill has a direct impact on the enjoyment of the game.

This kind of cooperative game mechanic hits close to home for me. I have two groups of people that I play games within my circles. I have my friends that are highly competitive and we enjoy the head-to-head nature of most board games, tactical war-games, and the quasi-adversarial nature of a good RPG that pits players against the game master. But some some of my friends are a bit more casual in their approach to playing games. When it comes time to select our games they tend to gravitate towards the cooperative boardgames like Zombicide, Forbidden Island, or Lord of the Rings (Now printed by Fantasy Flight Games). In order to add variety to the game rotation I am always on the lookout for a new cooperative game.

The Kickstarter campaign has an initial funding goal of $40,000 (at the time of this post they should have met their initial funding goal) with nearly a full month to get enough supporters to hit the goal and reach the additional stretch goals. If their miniatures are anywhere close to the same caliber of their flagship skirmish game MERCS I’m going to be incredibly pleased. The Kickstarter promises hobby-quality models that are all based on the brilliant designs of Keith Lowe, the lead designer behind Myth and MERCS.

If you enjoy cooperative games to play with spouses, significant others, and casual gamers it may be worthwhile to vote with your wallet on this one. As an added benefit there are some pretty good stretch goals that have been announced on this project.

Not too long ago, futurists believed that as communication became easier and access to data became more universal, people would be better informed and better educated, which would result in a society that makes better decisions; ignorance and superstition would become obsolete, and old animosities rooted in myth and distrust would evaporate. Sadly, it seems the internet has served to speed up the dissemination of urban legends, hoaxes and disinformation.

Georgia attorney Loren Collins, in his new book, Bullspotting, takes aim at the logical fallacies that underlie many of today’s most popular delusions. (Disclosure: I’ve known Collins for at least 15 years; I was a regular contributor to an earlier site of his, Suspension of Disbelief, where we examined the accuracy of plot points in comic books and movies; when he ran for Congress as write-in candidate for the Bull Moose Party, I designed his Bull Moose logo. I’m reviewing his book here not because he’s a friend, but because his book is very good.) Continue Reading “Bullspotting: Finding Facts in the Age of Misinformation” »